The Independence City Council approved a zoning change for a new grocery store development located at the northeast corner of Madison and Harris Pikes by a 5-1 vote Monday night.
The development plot is roughly 19 acres and is being developed by Crosland Southeast, a developer out of North Carolina. Greg Steffen was the only council member to vote against the zoning change.
“What was attractive to me when [the developers] came was… this is going to provide more services for the community and keeps it at that intersection,” said Independence Mayor Chris Reinersman during the council discussion.
The vote changed the area from a neighborhood and residential zone to a commercial one. In addition to the grocery store, the development plans include an attached liquor store, a separate drive-thru restaurant and retail building, access streets to both Madison and Harris as well as parking lots.
Chris Taft, a vice president with Crosland Southeast who attended the meeting, declined to reveal which grocery store chain would appear on the plot, but some have speculated that it could be a Publix, an employee-owned store chain the company has already developed in North Carolina and Georgia.
Crosland Southeast is also aiding in the development of Triple Crown Shopping Center in Boone County, which was recently confirmed as the site for a new Publix. The developers are also involved with developing a yet-to-be-identified grocery store at Fairview Commons, which straddles the border between Florence and Union.
Crosland Southeast and Bayer Becker, the engineering firm contracted for the development, earned a recommendation from the Kenton County Planning Commission on Sept. 7, and the city completed a first reading of the zoning change at their October meeting.
The council discussed the zoning change before voting on it. Council member Steffen, the lone no vote, expressed concerns about what the zoning change might bring in the long run.
“I do not believe we should be extending commercial zoning into what’s currently residential areas,” Steffen said.
Steffen has been critical of developments in Independence before, and he said that opening the area to commercial development could crowd out residential space, referencing housing shortages in the region as well as the county’s 2030 comprehensive plan, which marks off the area as mixed-use, meaning it allows for the construction of a combination of retail, residential and office buildings.
“It says mixed use is intended to be a buffer between residential and more intense commercial development,” Steffen said.
Although the other council members eventually voted in favor of the zoning change, several admitted that Steffen’s worries weren’t without merit.
“I share your concern,” said council member Chris Vogelpohl, adding that he would generally be opposed to “encroaching commercial [properties] further down Harris,” he said, much like Steffen.
The council discussed the county’s comprehensive plan and a 2007 small area study, flagging the area as mixed-use. The study’s findings were later shelved, despite the expense incurred to perform it, much to the chagrin of council member Carol Franzen, who sat on the council at the time.
Moreover, the Kenton County Planning Commission’s documentation outlining its Sept. 7 decision directly cites the 2007 study but argues why rezoning should be allowed to proceed.
“Although the 2007 study does identify the subject area as part of a mixed-use area that is to serve as a transition area between the more intense commercial and the existing single-family areas,” the commission’s documents read, “the plan does clearly provide that this area is also part of an area identified for commercial activity and envisions additional retail and businesses expanding within this area. There is also additional areas to the north and east of the subject area which are still within this mixed-use area that can serve as the transition.”
From most of the council members’ point of view, there didn’t seem to be wide-scale opposition from the community about the development: Reinersman said that he’d only received two emails about it, and Franzen said that she hadn’t received any comments from residents opposing it.
Reinersman, who, as mayor, did not cast a vote on the ordinance, said that, even if concerns about over-development weren’t unfounded, one way to prevent developmental sprawl was to identify smaller areas ideal for commercial development and keep it contained there, rather than letting it run rampant.
“I think the change is inevitable,” Reinersman said. “… My guiding principle has always been to try and get in front of it and manage it.”
After some hesitation, Franzen made a motion, and the council cast its 5-1 vote.
Taft told LINK nky that the development’s construction timeline is unknown at this time.
The next meeting of the Independence City Council will take place on Dec. 4 at 7 p.m. at the Independence City Building on Madison Pike.